


Bright Coin

by Dargelos (Dargie)



Category: Lost
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-11
Updated: 2010-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-06 04:17:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dargie/pseuds/Dargelos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Much talk of the price of local goods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bright Coin

He doesn't know why he should care what the Arab thinks of him because after all, guys with names like that, like Sayid and Ali, or – Sawyer's favorite for goofy-assed sounding names – Abdul. Guys with names like that, he thinks, and dark skin, they're pretty good at stuff like electronics and computers, or running grocery stores, and man don't they know how to overcharge a guy? But fuck if their opinion is worth the proverbial plugged nickel. Their women are pretty, though, that is if you ever get to see them without those bags over their heads. Sometimes, though, Sawyer thinks about the dark eyes he's caught darting away from the direct, considering glances he's inclined to give to women, particularly ones who aren't in his class.

Which is to say, who aren't upper middle-class, southern, white boys masquerading as white trash. As the kind of pistol-toting yahoo whose dream woman is a mute nymphomaniac who lives over a bar. Sawyer likes being the swaggering tough guy who brought down a polar bear… even if he couldn't manage a clean kill on the cop because, Jesus, at the last minute his gut knotted up so tight he thought he'd never be able to stand up straight again, his hand shook, and it was a goddamned person lying there begging to die. Fucking polar bear hadn't wanted to die. It wanted to tear him and the others into bloody shreds, and that's what made it easy. The anger, the fear.

He kicks the side of Sayid's boot. "Hey," he says by way of greeting.

Dark eyes glance up at him, consider what they see and turn back to the work Sayid is doing. "Hey."

"What'cha doing?"

Sayid tinkers a bit more before he replies. "It's familiar work. My hands fall to it, and who knows what I might come up with."

An answer that's not an answer at all, which is something Sayid is good at and something Sawyer hates because he likes the unambiguous statement and the pure intent. All the same, he doesn't pursue it because he's hunting something else, though he isn't entirely aware of it yet.

"You a tech guy at home?" Sawyer asks, allowing that Sayid might think of the States as his home, too.

"You might say that."

"So where do you work?"

This provokes a small, unamused smile. "When I'm not sabotaging planes and planning world domination? I very much doubt I have a job any longer. And what do you do?"

Sawyer lies. "Work at a gas station." He smirks a little. That was true once, when he was sixteen and needed money for his girlfriend's abortion.

"A gas station attendant on vacation in Australia," Sayid says thoughtfully. "Perhaps I'm in the wrong line of work."

"You should know about the price of gas," Sawyer counters, hating to be sniffed out even if the lie was lame.

"So you're blaming me personally for that?" All the same, Sayid seems amused. Sawyer wonders if he can provoke him because he'd love to fight right now. "Let's see, the price of gas, the airplane crash… anything else you'd like to hang on me? A lousy love life?"

Whoa, that hits way too close to the mark, and Sawyer nearly snarls at him. But he clenches his fist in his pocket and feels the smoothness of a couple of those little liquor bottles he liberated from the fuselage before it was burned.

"Want a drink?"

"I'm Muslim," Sayid replies.

Sawyer waits a beat for an explanation and, receiving none, moves along. "So, is that a yes, I want to be a drunk Muslim, or no, I don't drink?"

"The latter. Muslims don't drink alcohol."

"I suppose you'll be pissed off if I say it sounds like a stupid religion?"

Oddly, Sayid laughs. He lays the Rube-Goldberg contraption he's working on down on the sand and holds out his hand. "It's been a long time since I was a good Muslim," he says quietly. Sawyer hands him the bottle of vodka, keeping the bourbon for himself. They unscrew the caps, clink the bottles and drink. Sayid swallows, and there's a little, reminiscent smile on his face. When did Sawyer begin to find this man handsome?

"I was thinking," Sayid said, and for a moment Sawyer holds his breath, imagining that perhaps he might be going to get one wholly unguarded sentence out of Captain Falafel. "That it would have been nice to find an orange tree on this island, so I could have had a screwdriver."

Hardly a revelation, but it makes Sawyer smile, too.

"Quite apart from the issue of scurvy," Sayid says, his voice trailing away.

"You sure as fuck know how to kill a good buzz, don't you, Abdul? Say, I got a joke for you."

Sayid's eyebrow quirks a bit, but he says nothing.

"This guy catches a cab at the airport and wants to go into the city. About halfway there, in the middle of nowhere, just about, the cab breaks down. The driver gets out and checks under the hood, then gets back into the cab. "Well, it doesn't look good," he tells the passenger. The passenger, who's a handy guy, kind of like yourself, says "Would it help if I gave you a screwdriver?" And the driver says, "That's not a bad idea seeing as how we're gonna be stuck here for a while with nothing else to do.""

He is rewarded by a snort of laughter from Sayid who tries unsuccessfully not to show that the joke amused him. Finally Sayid says, "That's rather good. Know any more?"

"Sure. I got a million of 'em," Sawyer says. He pulls two more bottles out of his pocket and tosses one to Sayid. "This guy gets to Boston and hails a cab at the airport…"

"Are you the king of cab ride jokes?"

"This is stream of consciousness stuff. You want to hear it or not?"

"Of course." Sayid opens the bottle and takes a sip.

"So he hails a cab, and gets in, and when the driver says "Where to?" the guy tells him "Take me someplace I can get scrod." The driver says "Man, that is the first time I've ever heard it in the past pluperfect."" He looks over at Sayid, eager for another laugh, proof that he can touch something there. But there is only polite bafflement on the Iraqi's face.

"Scrod? Past pluperfect?"

"Scrod. What is that?"

Sawyer groans. "Never mind," he says. He's annoyed but he doesn't know with who. "So okay, you tell me one. Bet you know a million camel jokes."

"Perhaps not that many. What did you really come here for?" Sayid asks, finishing off the second bottle. "And how many more of those little bottles do you have on you?"

Sawyer puts his hand in his pocket and moves it around suggestively. There's a muffled sound of glass clinking against glass. "Is this a bottle in my pocket or am I really glad to see you?" he asks. Lame, lame, lame. Man he must be drunker than he thought to be saying stupid stuff like that.

All the same, Sayid smiles a little and shakes his head. Sawyer moves closer and hands him another bottle. He drains his own in a single, burning gulp. "Jesus," he says. "Can't hold my liquor anymore."

"That's the diet."

"The what?"

"The diet. We've been living on boar, and those crackers and bread rolls we found in the fuselage. Not much fat in either."

"So?"

"The higher fat your diet, the better you can hold your liquor."

It's Sawyer's turn to blink. "What're you? Mr. Wizard?"

"Who's that?"

By way of answer, Sawyer kisses him. Just like that. He leans over and kisses Sayid, nearly missing the man's mouth, managing to plant a damp kiss on the corner of the sensual lips. He pulls away, and finds he cannot bear to look at Sayid now. "So…want to buy another bottle?" he asks. The irony harms no one but himself, but that's okay because he's drunk, and it will only hurt later when he's alone. To his surprise, he hears Sayid laugh.

"You know the price of everything and the value of nothing,"

Now he turns. He stares. "Your kisses worth more than the last bottles of booze on the island?" he demands.

"I was under the impression that it was more than kisses you were after. In fact, how the kissing got started I can't imagine." He reaches over and unzips Sawyer's slacks, reaches in and find's Sawyer's semi-erect penis, and works it free none-too-gently, but that doesn't matter. It just makes Sawyer harder. "On the other hand I'll trade you a hand job for the rest of the booze."

Sawyer wilts. Comprehensively. He tucks himself back into his pants, throws the rest of the bottles in the sand at Sayid's feet, and stumbles off to feel sorry for himself. Something he's awfully good at.

Later. Much, much later, Sawyer wakens out of a dream which he will remember only imperfectly in days to come, mixed as it is with the feel of something sold and warm against his back, and a hand touching him. Gently. And a softly accented whisper.

"What does it take to touch you?"

"What's my price, you mean?" he manages as the hand caresses his chest and belly.

"No. What do you value?"

Sawyer has the oddest sense that he's being asked to sell his soul to the devil, which is strange because he thought he'd done that long ago. He cannot speak.

"What do you value?" he's asked a second time. "This is my real price. I want to know."

"Price's too high," he says, and the arms around him tighten for a moment, then turn him so that he is belly-to-belly with Sayid. Sayid naked. Sawyer cannot breathe. His head is swimming and so are his eyes so thank God it's dark. And yet he thinks, rather wildly, that he could read his book by the light in the other man's eyes.

This time the kiss works. It's a perfect lip lock, with tongues, and quiet laughter, because although they're a little away from the others, and hidden by Sawyer's little makeshift living room furniture, they're close enough to attract attention if they get too rambunctious. And how the hell can a man who's been stuck on an island in the middle of fucking nowhere for a week smell so damn good, Sawyer wonders as he sniffs and licks and kisses and bites his way down Sayid's throat and shoulder and chest. When he gets to the flat belly, he finds Sayid's cock at attention there like the good little Republican Guard it is, and he rucks back the foreskin and takes it into his mouth almost without thought.

It's not like this is his first cock after all. That's how he'll try to convince himself later that it didn't mean anything.

Only it means the world. Literally. It is the thing that begins to anchor him to this life. That, and the feel of Sayid's mouth on him. Afterwards, when Sayid doesn't get up and run away from him, that's good too. Though he doesn't quite know how he feels about the others knowing that they've just engaged in a mutual mercy fuck. Still, it's probably worth it, he thinks, weighing the price of what they just did now that he's not quite so besotted with the smell of Sayid's skin or the taste of his kisses.

"Don't," Sayid says.

"What?"

"Go away like that. Stay here with me."

The air is a cold blue with the coming of dawn. Sawyer doesn't like it that Sayid can see his face so clearly in the watery light. He turns away. "Look, don't think that just because…"

Sayid puts his hand over Sawyer's mouth. Their eyes meet, and Sawyer flinches. He can't help it. The look in Sayid's eyes makes him feel the way he felt when he heard that Marshall making those wet, raspy noises when he should've been dead. It makes him feel sick inside. Because he's just fucked up.

Only they're still both alive. It can be fixed. The little voice in his head that tells him to run and hide is screaming, but he says, "I'm sorry," against the muffling hand. Just that. But it changes the expression on his face to say it, and the look in his eyes. He can feel how soft they've gone. Perhaps one day he'll hate himself for this, but right now, it's the only thing that's keeping his heart beating.

Sayid nods. He moves his hand, replaces it briefly with his mouth for one last kiss, and then he's gone.

In his old life, Sawyer had stopped trading in kisses. As he watches the sun come up that morning, he thinks that it may be the only currency worth anything.


End file.
